Guìnán

The Guìnán are Pinghua-speaking Han people of the Yong River basin in southern Guangxi, centred on Nanning and stretching through Hengzhou and Binyang. Their Southern Pinghua forms a continuum with the neighbouring Goulou Yue dialects and has absorbed Zhuang words; some Pinghua villages are even counted among the Zhuang.

The city began as Jinxing county in 318, was renamed Xuanhua in 598 and became Yongzhou under the Tang in 632. In 1052 the Zhuang leader Nong Zhigao seized Yongzhou, proclaimed a dynasty and swept east to Guangzhou; Song general Di Qing took the Kunlun Pass and recovered Yongzhou in 1053.

Di Qing settled Pingnan Army veterans there, whom tradition credits with spreading Pinghua. The Yuan renamed the city Nanning in 1324 and the Ming made it Nanning prefecture in 1368.